Monday, June 30, 2008

Search for the Conservative Magazine "The American Spectator" in Google and you get the following warning: "this site may harm your computer". It is what Google tells you if the pages in question are suspected of harboring "malware". In this case, Google reports:

The Spectator has been tagged for this twice in the last six months. Hilariously enough, given the magazine's right-wing ideology, these warnings are often generated after third party hackers, working out of Panama or the former Soviet Union, have added malicious code to legitimate sites. Cold war redux, anyone?

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Peter A. Nelson, executive director of the Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association, has achieved a certain level of notoriety lately for being a carrier of Tory water in their attack on the Dion Green Shift.

So now we're at $16 a head. But there's more! Yesterday, on the Trucknews website, Mr. Nelson argued that recent increases to fuel surcharges levied by Marine Atlantic would have even more deleterious effects:

So now we're up to $26 for a head of lettuce in Atlantic Canada, and a severe shoe shortage!

A couple of things in conclusion: 1) Mr. Nelson should get some new material, and 2) Dion has been lucky thus far in the quality of his Green Shift opponents. He's going to need to remain lucky, however, if every time he tries to explain The Shift he generates headlines like this one.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

The Steyn article discusses changing global demographics and other factors that the author describes as contributing to an eventual ascendancy of Muslims in the 'developed world', a prospect that the author fears for various reasons described in the article. The writing is polemical, colourful and emphatic, and was obviously calculated to excite discussion and even offend certain readers, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

Overall, however, the views expressed in the Steyn article, when considered as a whole and in context, are not of an extreme nature as defined by the Supreme Court in the Taylor decision. Considering the purpose and scope of section 13 (1), and taking into account that an interpretation of s. 13 (1) must be consistent with the minimal impairment of free speech, there is no reasonable basis in the evidence to warrant the appointment of a Tribunal. For these reasons, this complaint is dismissed.

All of which should be profoundly unsurprising to anyone who followed the complaint without an interest in self-martyrdom.

But--calculated to offend?--that oughtta be enough to have Macleans' PAP subsidy revoked. When Heritage Canada responds to my torrid emails inquiring as to how to launch a complaint, Kenneth Whyte and Mark Steyn and co. will have to start buying their own stamps.

I wrote yesterday about the ongoing case of Pardy v. Earle and others , in which two Lesbians have taken Comedian Guy Earle and Zesty Food Services to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal because Earle gave them a hard time at a comedy club operating out of Zesty's Restaurant (now known as Zawa).

Yesterday, this case looked like a bit of HRT over-reach, with Mr. Earle under the gun merely for telling jokes and making rude remarks. However, having read the decision that has sent this case to the tribunal, I am no longer so sure. It states:

And you may ask: so what? Well, firstly, unlike the Steyn case, Pardy vs. Earle is NOT about the mere employment of hateful language. Note that Earle is being charged under Section 8 of the B.C. Human Rights Code, which is entitled "Discrimination in accommodation, service and facility". The language is quite dissimilar to Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which governs hate messages. Now, the B.C. code does indeed have a section 13 doppelganger; it is section 7, which covers "Discriminatory publication ", and indeed that is the section of the code that Steyn allegedly violated.

So what does this difference amount to? Well, I am not a lawyer, but I am going to attempt an explanation anyhow.

Imagine our two lesbians wander into the comedy club, pay their cover and buy their drinks, and find themselves listening to a cheap Andrew Dice Clayton knock-off, who is making crude anti-lesbian jokes to the audience in general. Later they leave, and as they leave one of the comedy club patrons says something nasty. That would be the kind of situation where they might launch a section 7 complaint against the club and comic; they have been exposed to hatred and contempt etc. through the words of the comic. And here we may argue over the free speech implications raised by such a complaint.

On the other hand, imagine the following situation (which I think is closer to the one actually outlined in Pardy v. Earle). Our Lesbians have paid their cover charge (I am assuming Zesty's levied one, though I am not sure of this), paid for their drinks and perhaps food, and then our comedian--an employee or agent of the club--goes off on them personally with an anti-Lesbian tirade, to the point where they can no longer enjoy their beverages (in reality our comedian wound up wearing these beverages). And, in the end our comedian plucks the specs from the nose of one of our lesbians, and breaks them. During all this time, none of the other club patrons were singled out for abuse, nor their eye-glasses smashed. Were the services provided by the comedy club provided to our Lesbians in a discriminatory fashion? That's the question addressed by a section 8 complaint.

Now, there are a lot of caveats here. For one thing, alcohol seems to have played a (somewhat disputed) role in the incident, and there is a kind of comedy club justice where obnoxious hecklers can be subject to a certain amount of abuse. The question to be answered by the tribunal will be: did Earle go too far? (As an interesting aside, the club audience apparently took sides with our two Lesbians and against Earle, walking out on him and booing his tirade).

In any case, the take-away message, I think, is that:

1) The National Post bungled this story by playing up the "hateful remarks" aspect of it at the expense of the "provision of services" aspect, not to mention completely ignoring the physical confrontation that occurred between the comedian and our lesbians. (Imagine you walked into a restaurant, and your waiter abused the hell out of you for being, lets say, Jewish, then busted your specs. A legitimate Human Rights complaint?)

2) WK is wrong about this complaint necessarily being frivolous. And everyone (but me!)is wrong about its being primarily about the limits of free speech.

I haven't heard enough about this case to develop an opinion, but you can watch Earle defending his actions (and offering a few apologies) below on the Dave and Chuck Show (about 12 minutes long):

Seems like a nice enough fellow, and drunken hecklers at comedy shows are a curse upon the planet. But not mentioned in The Province is the fact that, towards the end of the episode, something resembling a "physical confrontation" sort of occurred.

PPS. The ruling that sends this case to the tribunal is here. Note that the criteria for sending it to the tribunal is that the tribunal chair H. MacNaughton can not rule out the possibility that the complainant will win their case.

Steve got an early look at this poll and has done his usual excellent job with it, so let me just note that the poll was done (online) from June 23rd to 24th, or post Green Shift announcement. Some of the Lib. gains can therefore almost certainly attributed to the unveiling of the new plan. The poll also notes that a minor bounce-back in Dion's fairly dismal personal numbers can be associated with the plan.

Poll is available as .pdf here. Although Steve seems to have seen material not generally available, so definitely give him a read.

PS. Yes I have in the past questioned the methodology of AR online polls. Clearly, clearly, they have changed their ways so as to get a more scientific result.

It's also the sliver of truth in the Tories claim that The Green Shift is a "tax grab/redistribution scheme" meant to fund Liberal election promises. Take this provision out and you kill their best argument; you also presumably can set the carbon tax rate lower, as you won't need the cash to cut everyone with a kid a $350 cheque.

The most prayed for piece of legislation in 2008 has been MP Ken Epp’s Bill C-484 (The Unborn Victims of Crime Act), which would create a separate offence for killing or injuring a fetus during an attack on a pregnant woman.

Another entry requested prayers for “a total overhaul or abolition of the current human rights councils in this country” and referred readers to conservative pundit Ezra Levant’s articles for further information. The case provoking the prayer request involves a human rights complaint into comments made about Muslims by writer Mark Steyn in Macleans magazine.

It is astounding, frankly, how much time and effort Canadian Conservatives are wasting over this issue. For one thing, the only real political chess piece on the board now, or at any time in the near future, is M-446 which, being a private member's motion, rather than a bill, has zero in the way of consequences.

And perhaps this explains the Tories inaction over the course of the past Parliamentary session. They look to their political base and they see madness. They scour the realm of the doable, and see nothing that can appease their political base, and much (like adopting a real climate change plan) that will inflame them. Hence the waffling and empty posturing.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

A former adviser in immigration made disconcerting revelations on the past of Julie Couillard, affirming that the former boyfriend of Maxime Bernier would have been tenancière of brothel.

Marie-Claude Montpetit explained in interview with the 98.5FM that Julie Couillard would have held two houses of vice in Montreal, one on the street St-Denis and the other on the street Bishop. The young girls who worked there were the immigrant ones coldly arrived.

Mrs. Montpetit also affirmed that Julie Couillard had been naked dancer in an establishment of the downtown area, and that it is not by chance that it met Maxime Bernier.Here is the original French.

Frankly, I may have to revise my opinion of the Liberals as the sexxxiest political party.

Also, does this mean there's pictures out there... somewhere? Its going to be hard to do any work today. Finally, I am not impressed by the capabilities of Babelfish. For example, the correct spelling is "nekkid". As in: "She's Nekkid! Nekkid! Hee hee hee!"Update: Welcome NN readers. Turns out the "immigration consultant" that made the above claims has credibility issues of his own.

Actually a rather nice interview with Vatican astronomer José Gabriel Funes. Does ET need redemption, or might she exist in "full friendship" with the creator? Father Funes has a definite spark of poetry in him.

Same race, same car number (though not, I think, the identical same car), no CPoC banner. Furthermore, CPOC is not given as one of car sponsors here. So, did the party with money to burn decide not to spend any pandering to NASCAR fans in 2008?

My last word on the Tom Chalko's Global Warming = More Earthquake's story (unless he responds to my email requesting further clarification of his ideas), which I am writing up only because it looks to be a slow news day.

One question that goes beyond the obvious "How could CBS (and other news outlets) have been so stupid as to publish this nonsense?" is "How did the original news release come to be tagged as coming from Associated Press?". There has been some speculation that CBS has been trying to pass the buck for their screwup.

Contrary to what I wrote yesterday, CBS does format material from from the news wires, including Associated Press, in a unique fashion. For example, byline and other location information at the beginning of an AP piece is cut from the story and replaced with the "(AP)" symbol. Furthermore, at the end of the article CBS inserts a slightly non-standard bit of boilerplate about not reproducing, rebroadcasting AP material. They use roman numerals for example (MMVIII), where AP does not . Nor do other news sources, as far as I have been able to determine, reformat material from AP in this way.

Now, perhaps because Marketwire is a Canadian-based service, you don't find too many releases from it appearing on the CBS website. In fact, I have been unable to find any. I suspect their origonal release re Chalko was incorrectly reformatted by CBS as being from AP and later incorrectly attributed to AP on that basis. No perfidy, just stupidity, in other words.

In a sense, of all the media entities associated with the Chalko story, CBS has behaved in the most professional manner. They at least have pulled the story; it is still out there, masquerading as news, on the MSNBC and G&M websites.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

The strange courtship between AGW Deniers and Canada's Far Right continues, with Tom Harris, leader of the ICSC, seeking validation from the denizens of FreeD. Not the way to enhance your organization's credibility, Tom, but at least this time your not asking them to FREEP your own poll.

Of course, the science behind Chalko's study turned out to be, well, highly questionable, and soon Internet scorn was raining down on CBS and MSNBC (where a link can still be found). Eventually, CBS pulled the story and, as noted above, blamed everything on AP. However, AP has denied all responsibility and, indeed, searches of its online database reveal no reference to Chalko.

Now, here's where it gets interesting. Below is how the story appears on Marketwire (which is, incidentally, a commercial news release service that does not seem to practice much in the way of quality control):

...but is really somewhat different from the stuff at the bottom of an actual AP release*:

2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.

So, maybe I've been hanging with Buckets for two long, but it seems unlikely that staff at CBS would have altered a Marketwire release to look like something from (AP). I would therefore wager that somebody outside of the company copped Chalko's Marketwire press release and reformatted it to look like an AP piece to give it enhanced credibility, then fired it off to CBS.

Not that this excuses CBS or anyone else (including G&M's website) who ran the story. In fact, next time you read something about the lack of journalistic standards in the blogosphere, think of the Tom Chalko story, and smile.

* Whoopsie. CBS (and it alone) DOES seem to use this alternative wording when they grab a story from (AP). First point (about the change of the opening paragraph) still holds, though.

Update: Given this, it appears that CBS does indeed re-format material from AP. So perhaps no prank, just stupidity--they mis-labelled a MarketWire release, perhaps because it doesn't seem they take to many stories from a mostly Canadian service.

I don't know how this qualifies as news, as I can remember downloading tracks from "Chinese Democracy" 8 years ago off Napster, or at least Axl's basement tape versions. If you're a fan, the songs will take you right back to the late 80s when you had big hair (or any hair, in some cases). If you're not really, just wait for them to play "November Rain" again on the radio.

About as close as a thumbs up as we're likely to get from Canada's 2nd grumpiest blogger (this guy being number one). I am reminded of Lou Grant's famous "It doesn't stink." from the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Considering the source, high praise indeed.

It is this kind of wretched, in fact beyond craptacular reporting by Associated Press (AP) and others that is liable to make ordinary people doubt any scientific claims, let alone controversial scientific claims about life-and-death topics such as Global Warming.

I doubt it, but it sounds like it might be cool to watch. And if you follow the footnotes, you'll see that the T.J. Chalko's references lead to this, Dr. Chalkos' book "The Freedom of Choice", about which it has been written that:

For the first time in the history of humanity on Earth The Purpose of existence of the entire Universe has been expressed and proven explicitly in writing for everyone to understand. Incidentally, it coincides with the purpose of your OWN existence... Are you ready?

So far, CBS and MSNBC, plus many lesser news sites, have been conned. And, frankly, this is such a horrid display of newsmanship--publishing obvious bullshit because you were unwilling to do two minutes of research--that it deserves an official and hearty BigCityLib denunciation.

Meanwhile Chantel Hebert is wondering why the Libs would draw attention away from the governing Tories difficulties to put the focus on their own environmental plan. Well, I think to get the party over the 35% hump in the polls, it is necessary for the LPC to stop behaving like an opposition party and start behaving like a government in waiting One element of a government in waiting these days is a responsible environmental plan. Since the Tories DO NOT HAVE a responsible environmental plan, there is a policy vacuum Dion and Co. can move in to and fill.

A hint here from Martha Hall Findlay that the income taxcut portion of the plan may come before the carbon tax imposition part. Good idea, if true.

A joke so cruel even I couldn't have thought of it. And indeed, a joke not deserved. One bit of credit I must give the Harper Tories: they have done their best to wipe their hands clean of the Ezras, the FreeD brigade, the Marc Lemire's and the Paul Fromm's. A blast from the Reform Party past, I suppose, that they would prefer to transcend.

You don't fly first class when you're stealing bandwidth. Wi-fi hot spots are large--about the size of a football field--but those signals had to pass through a lot of masonry before they got to my laptop.

"The size of a football field"--so lets say a hundred yards by a hundred yards. However, Flanders (and I think his is the most conservative estimate) puts the distance between Hechme's apartment and CHRC headquarters at 370 meters (1,202 feet), or about four times the distance our wifi thief claims to be the effective range of a standard wifi network.

This range can be increased with the use of special equipment (although 1,200 feet is still at the extreme limit of the doable), and indeed Flanders believes that the CHRC employed such equipment. However, not only is there no evidence for this (nor even that CHRC laptops were wifi enabled), we venture well into Ron Paul territory if we think the CHRC would maintain special gear just to steal the wifi from the local citizenry, especially when any number of unsecured wireless hotspots can be found within about a 100 meter radius of the CHRC building in Ottawa.

Wi-fi operates on an unlicensed frequency, so it has to deal with interference from baby monitors and microwave ovens and cordless phones too. As a result, my Internet access would vanish and reappear like a will-o'-the-wisp, even when I engaged OS X's excitingly named 'interference robustness' feature.

Which is to say that it is exceedingly unlikely a wifi connection could have been sustained for the 24 hour plus period suggested in the testimony from Bell Canada (Dec.7 at 6:36pm and Dec.8 at 9:35 pm).

Monday, June 16, 2008

...I guess we can dub the "oily the oil spot" ads a dismal failure. Although Kinsella (see article for comment) and Taylor insist that everything played out according to the Tory plan, that the ads are a sign their War Room is playing Chess while the rest of us play off-key Ukeleles.

And the whole ugly denoument when Fuelcast, the company hired to run the ads on local gas pumps, realized that doing so might cause motorists to immolate said gas pumps with their own fuel, and backed out of their contract with the CPoC? That was just a double feint so the Tories didn't come off looking too clever.

A highly surprising poll result. Maybe its because our "stars" are such a low key, earnest bunch--you can hardly brand Sarah Polley a decadent socialite, and Cronenberg makes you gag from the highest of artistic intentions--but it appears as though the Harper Gov's attempt to bash Hollywood North has been a failure.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

As per usual in his series on AGW Deniers, Lawrence Solomon is able to find a retired old fart to talk about an area of science he has no special expertise in. In this case, soil scientist Cliff Ollier attempts to demonstrate that the rapid melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets is impossible.

Usually with one of Solomon's pieces it takes a bit of research to discover that its all bullshit. Luckily, in this case, I've been wanting to write about these glacial lakes for awhile now, and already had a few links/quotes in the bag.

...which is an interesting question when you compare this graphic of StormFront's Canadian Membership...with this population breakdown by province from the 2006 census. Alta., with 10% of the population, has 16% of the Nazis! They've even been seen in the streets of Calgary! In fact all of the Western Provinces seem over-represented, given their population. Oh My!

...on global warming, is being driven largely by the people named in this list:

Joseph Aldy, Resources for the FutureJames Edmonds, Pacific Northwest National LaboratoryRichard Howarth, Dartmouth CollegeBruce McCarl, Texas A&M UniversityRobert Mendelsohn, Yale UniversityWilliam Nordhaus, Yale University SSergey Paltsev, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyWilliam Pizer, Resources for the FutureDavid Popp, Syracuse UniversityJohn Reilly, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyRoger Sedjo, Resources for the FutureKathleen Segerson, University of ConnecticutBrent Sohngen, Ohio State UniversityRobert Stavins, Harvard UniversityRichard Tol, Economic and Social Research InstituteMartin Weitzman, Harvard UniversityPeter Wilcoxen, Syracuse UniversityGary Yohe, Wesleyan UniversityNote how climate change skeptics tend to regard folks like Nordhaus as being on their side of the issue, but really the variation of opinion among this bunch is limited to technicalities:

Opinions varied on whether the Congress should implement a cap-and-trade system or a tax to control greenhouse gas emissions, with eight panelists preferring a cap-and-trade program with a safety valve (sometimes referred to as a hybrid system), seven preferring a tax, and three preferring a cap-and-trade program. All of the panelists agreed that the policy should target all sectors of the economy, and the majority believed that it should include all greenhouse gases. For example, one panelist stated that by establishing a price on emissions from all sources in the United States with no exceptions, the policy would equilibrate the marginal cost of reducing emissions across all sources, making it economically efficient.h/t Rabbit.

Dear Galactus,As gas prices are at an all-time high, the American people are demanding that Congress take action to drill here and drill now. More than 650,000 Americans have signed the "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" petition, and that number keeps growing rapidly each day.[...]We're excited to announce today that Chuck Norris is supporting our "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" campaign. Watch him talk about it in this new YouTube video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=JnVVkCsw41c. Hell, why stop at Alaska? With Galactus and Chuck Norris both onside I bet they could convince Congress to let 'em go to Mt. Rushmore and drill for oil through Abe Lincoln's head. Because Galactus could disintegrate all of Washington with a wave of the hand, and lets face it, you don't fuck with Chuck.

Well, starting with low rates may result in leaving them low forever, as it would mean summoning a another act of political Will to raise them. But what about this:

Dion's promise is that, if the average Canadian is going to pay an extra $1,000 to for example heat their home, they will get $1,000 in income tax cuts. Why not have the tax shift kick in immediately after the income tax cheques have been delivered for the year in question? So Canadians face the shift with money in hand, as it were?

I have told the story of Reid Bryson here. Although in later life Mr. Bryson became a climate change skeptic, perhaps overacting to his own predictions of global cooling in the 1970s--these predictions based upon upon solid reasoning, it should be said, and quickly revised when the world uneviled new facts--he continued working in the field of climatology well after his retirement, and well into his 80s.

In any case, sad news.

Here is the announcement of his death, by Professor Greg J. Tripoli of the University of Wisconsin:

Thursday, June 12, 2008

I'm just guessing here, Ezra, but I imagine the technical term for the "Private Investigator" that visited your parents place is a "process server" (ie a person who serves (delivers) legal papers in lawsuits, either as a profession or as a government official). And I am just guessing, but I imagine the reason he visited your folks on behalf of Giacomo Vigna* is because whois gives your folks' address in the contact information for your website.

As for the rest...well...I'm surprised you didn't portray the guy as flying in on bat wings and chewing the head off the family pet.

Steve Fuller is a Sociologist at the University of Warwick in Conventry, UK., and an old Internet acquaintance of mine. Which is to say I use to argue the virtues of Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend, and etc. with him on the HOPOS e-mail list.

Steve has written numerous books on Thomas Kuhn, Karl Popper, and the Governance of Science. Most famously, perhaps, he argued for the Pro-ID forces in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District. In this taped lecture he discusses the resurgence of the concept of Human Nature in the work of Linguists such as Pinker, and Evolutionary Psychologists like E.O. Wilson.

Quite enjoyable. He contends that, within the last 20 or so years, the Political Left has embraced what was previously a right wing idea, and that Evolutionary Psychology has difficulty explaining (because it is difficult to assign a survival value to) the development of scientific thinking.

About an hour long, with the lecture itself going about 40 minutes, plus 20 minutes of (mostly inaudible) questions.

PS. Normally I would embed the file but I couldn't get it to work in this case.

2) In March 2007, Freedomsite owner Marc Lemire, who has brought a criminal complaint against the CHRC for hacking Nelly Hechme's wifi, asked Stormfront founder, Don Black, for IPs related to the activities on Stormfront of one Jadewarr, Dean Steacy's Stormfront Pseudonym. Black provided Lemire with the IP address 70.48.181.203. Lemire then subpoenaed Bell Canada for information about this address.

4) Except: what are the odds that Dean Steacy hacked a wifi account that, by sheer coincidence, bore the same IP in December as the IP borne by his own account about three months earlier? I would suggest they are rather low--"infinitesimal", as Buckets says.

Where does the story go from here? Read more in the upcoming few days, but here's a couple of hints.

Hint One: Most likely nobody visited Stormfront from 70.48.181.203 on December 8, 2006. Not Steacy, not Hechme--nobody. Lemire's criminal complaint, which refs that IP number, will therefore come to nought.

Hint Two: Given the search tools employed by Stormfront, a thorough search of IPs related to Jadewarr should have returned more than a single address. And the address used by CHRC staff in December, 2006 is almost certainly sitting undiscovered in Stormfront records.

Public Works Minister Michael Fortier dismissed senior Quebec adviser Bernard Côté yesterday after it emerged Côté had a romantic relationship with Julie Couillard last year.Given the dates involved, it sounds as if there might have been some overlap between L'affaire Bernier and L'affaire Cote.

In any case, is Public Works Minister Michael Fortier the next domino to fall?

Last April, La Presse reported, Couillard attended a fundraising cocktail party in Châteauguay-Saint-Constant, a riding on Montreal's south shore, making a $1,000 contribution to the party.

Le Devoir reported yesterday that Fortier was at the party.

The event's organizer told the paper that Couillard handed him a Kevlar business card at the cocktail party, but that he remembered her mostly because the $1,000 cheque bounced.She stiffed the CPoC for $1,000 and nobody cared!

Bucket's (pictured left) revs up his extraordinary brain to take a crack at the alleged "hack" of Nelly Hechme's home wifi network by CHRC operatives. That Dean Steacey and other CHRC employees commandeered the wifi network of an Ottawa citizen in order to visit Stormfront (a Neo-Nazi bulletin board) is an allegation made by noted white supremacist (and now Free Speech Hero) Marc Lemire.

I won't go into details in this space, because Bucket's first three posts ( here, and here, and here) provide an extensive background to this thrilling episode, with conclusions to follow.

But... something to consider: Bell IP addresses (like 70.48.181.203, the one Nelly Hechme possessed in December of 2006) are assigned dynamically, belonging to different owners at different times.

This should work well in the GTA, and its something I will be trying as well. Be sure you let Paul Wells know about every station running these "fuelcasts" that you've told to go shove it. It would be very cool if a few major petro-suppliers could be forced to recant their participation in this campaign.

PS. The stories I am reading suggest these ads will run mostly in GTA and Southern Ontario. This is where a boycott may be most effective.

Update: Bloggers calling for a fuelcast boycott now include Dr. Dawg, Red Tory, and John Waugh. If anyone else wants to join up, please post on the topic.

Further update:Kady the Wunderbabe is reporting that the company the Tories say was hired to coordinate fuelcast ads with GTA gas stations has denied everything. Our boycott has succeeded before it even got started! Paul Wells is reporting that gangs of Tory Yellowshirts have descended on downtown Ottawa, harassing motorists and other passersby. Oh the Humanity!

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Hi BigCityLib,Stéphane wanted to tell you... Having trouble setting priorities? Friends don't know what they speak about? Billions of dollars of spending promises got you in a big debt hole? Well don't worry. If you answered yes to any of these questions, there is an answer. A permanent new tax on everything!If you agree click here.Weird in that I didn't ask to get email when I visited the site, so this must mean someone in the party has taken time to read the blog and send me an annoying email...on a Sunday, no less! That's Scary! It's like I'm being followed by "PC" in the Mac commercial. Has anyone else got these this morning? Maybe we can report this guy (it must be a guy) to the DWEEB police.

Just kidding Stephane. But you should try and get out in the sun a bit.

But whatever. Ads right at gas pumps. Gangs of young Tories at petrol stations, engaged in guerrilla marketing. (Careful with that. Motorists with a dark sense of humour might just hose 'em down with gasoline and torch 'em for kicks. Not me, obviously.) Is the fact that the website goes out of its way to reference Jason Cherniak personally a sign of the Harper governments all seeing, all knowing nature, or a sign of the fact that they are spending zillions on something really "inside baseball" in nature, and therefore just...don't...get...it?

Bernier having no effect on Tory fortunes? Hard to believe, but two Ipsos polls in a row say its so. And while you may argue that Ipsos overstates Tory support (they do poll for CanWest, after all), you would think they would show movement if movement there was.

Keep reading for the whole list of nasty theoretical side-effects, but the most important one is that:

The costs of damage to the external natural environment by economic activities must be treated as costs that lie outside the closed market system or as costs that cannot be included in the pricing mechanisms that operate within the system. As a result:

[Neo-Classical economics] constitutes one of the greatest barriers to combating climate change and other threats to the planet. It is imperative that economists devise new theories that will take all the realities of our global system into account.

AGW may give rise to any number of "high-impact low probability" disasters (melting Greenland ice-sheets, for example) the results of which would be so catastrophic as to confound the economist's standard cost benefit analysis (you can't really predict how many points having to abandon a flooded New York City will knock of the GDP).

And while these events have a low probability, their destructive effects are so extreme as to justify immediate action against them as a form of insurance policy. (In particular, high enough to set the price of carbon at $50 per ton U.S.)

Friday, June 06, 2008

James Hansen is the world's best-known climatologist. Lately, he has been making some attempts at policy prescription, and his latest effort looks a bit like what Dion's tax shifting plan might look like if the details of it are ever released. Hansen calls his scheme"Carbon Tax and 100% Dividend":

and much back and forth takes place in the comments. Apparently, the Swedes have a carbon tax that gets returned to you in the form of income tax cuts.

Note: I'm not expressing too much in the way of opinion in these carbon tax vs. cap-and-trade posts because I don't have particularly strong opinions either way. One point that Dion has made, and that Hansen makes in the above, is that a Carbon tax is far easier to implement than a cap-and-trade market.

Seeing the Liberals turtle all Winter and Spring has been painful to watch.

Having Dion whip the vote over C-484 and kill it would be sweet relief.

Mind you, watching a handful of Socially Conservative Liberal MPs tell Dion to blow it out his ass and vote with the Tories to pass C-484 would be even more painful to watch.

And watching Dion have to renege at the last minute to avoid the above-noted spectacle would be worth about a three-bucket barf.

So this vow is a real opportunity and a real risk, one that I am nevertheless glad Mr. Dion has taken.

(On the other hand, it looks like Harper and Co. are going to let a bunch of bills get ground up in the wheels of the legislative process. Maybe C-484 will be one of them. If it expires at night in the Senate, that is the best possible outcome. And those old guys up there are clever. Sometimes they only appear to be sleeping, when in fact they are in deep deliberations.)

Which begs the question. If the real purpose of this Tory stunt is to stop the Liberals from using their version of the tape in campaign commercials, why could said Liberals not return to the original, re-excerpt it, and use that?

In any case, thanks to James Moore for bringing this one back from the dead.

PS. Here is the website for Mr. Gough's company, Integra View, and this article touches a bit on the kind of work he does in real life.

Update: Apparently, the copy the CPoC analysed came direct from the publisher. Be interesting to know what kind of file it wound up being? An MP3 on a disk, for example? That's going to be significantly degraded from the original.

Update II: Tories are now suggesting Libs are in cahoots with Zytaruk, according to this new release from Party HQ. Weirdest bit:

When did the Liberal Party obtain the doctored tape? From whom did they receive it? Who in the Party received it?

Why are they asking this if in fact the tape analysed came to the analysts from the publisher via the Conservative Party. Isn't the answer to their 2nd question therefore: from the same people you got your copy from? And suddenly Paul Martin is involved.

Reevely has this esp. nice bit on Harper's rather desperate flailing over the issue:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper criticized the plan for not establishing a regulatory mechanism and suggested the new Montreal Climate Exchange will have to fill that void.[...]They’re going to leave the details to a privately operated market and that’s a problem? Remind me — who are the conservatives, again?